


Someone to Watch Over Me

by karrenia_rune



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Community: bigbangbuffet, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Secret Societies, Swords & Fencing, Vendettas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A teleport gone astray and an encounter with another stranger who also wields  a sword causes Hiro Nakamura to come to the attention of the Hunters and his best friend Ando Mashashi to be recruited into their ranks. But do they want Ando as a pawn or a new recruit? And what do the Hunters have up their sleeve for Duncan MacLeod and his friends in Seacouver when the world of the Immortals and the world of Heroes come into contact with one another?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From the point of no return, you're coming from

Summary: On destiny, mistaken identities, and secrets, but not always in that order...  
Disclaimer: Heroes and the characters Hiro Nakamura and Ando Masahashi are the creations of Tim Kring and NBC Television; they are not mine. The same goes for the characters and events from Highlander: the Series. They belong to Panzer/Davis Productions and are only ‘borrowed’ for the purposes of the story.

“Someone to Watch Over Me” by Karen

Las Vegas, Nevada, Present Day  
The glass and crystal high-rise office building took on an entirely different aspect at night.

It might have been simply a trick of the light or his own imagination playing tricks on him, however the man who bypassed the office’s security system could not help feeling a distinct feeling of being watched. Under the circumstances, the man reflected, it should have been the other way around. After all, that was his job, he was a Watcher.

New to the job and given his first assignment, a Japanese fellow operating in New York, Las Vegas had so far had been very difficult to not only locate, but pin down to any one area.

The most recent reliable sighting had been in New York at the Museum of Natural History, and Nakamura had come out of the place carrying a 19th century Japanese Katana that had supposedly at one time belonged to a legendary hero from Japanese folklore, Kenzimone. The sword had only been a mock-up of the real thing, which at the time had been in the possession of the notorious crook, Linderman in Las Vegas.

How Nakamura had gotten all the way from New York to Nevada, was still, something that he could not put his finger on, although it was known that he had had an accomplice, a friend Ando Masahashi, who was either very luck or very skilled gambler, because while in Las Vegas, had been tripped up gambling not wisely, but too well, and had nearly been killed.

While Nakamura and his friend had managed to dodge a literal bullet there, and despite his own misgivings about the task at hand, he had his orders, and he was going to carry them out.

Andrew Gallagher shook his head to clear it of the inevitable confusion and strode over to the display cases that had contained the sword, careful not to trip the security system.

How the man in question had managed to steal the sword in broad daylight, given Linderman’s reputation for tight security and under the noses of the old man’s guards, was still something of a matter of speculation.

Even the local police officers that he had questioned before arriving in Las Vegas were at a loss to explain it. It simply was another

Unsolved murder case to be filed away in an archive somewhere and forgotten.

Andrew Walker crossed the floor over to a file cabinet and realized with a start that one entire room had been taken up with files, photos, newspaper clippings, of people, and paintings of all shapes and sizes. A small painting of Hiro standing in the middle of down time Manhattan in the midst of rush-hour traffic at Times Square.

The style of painting was a bit on the comic-book art, “Andrew Walker thought, and with a start realized, that almost all of the paintings that featured Hiro Nakamura as the subject had been done in a style that resembled a comic book storyboard.

The only one that did not use that style was a wall-size painting set at a slant on canvas done in oil, of Hiro Nakamura facing off against what appeared to be a tyrannosaurs Rex armed with nothing more than a Japanese katana sword. The very same sword that he had stolen a week earlier.

“This is too weird,” Walker shook his head. “I mean, what the are the odds, that I should find this here?”

 

Interlude

Elsewhere Ando Masahashi woke up lying atop a made bed in a hotel room, groggy and with an the unpleasant taste of mothballs coating the roof of his mouth. He could never quite recall how he had managed to lose Hiro in the mad dash from Kirby Plaza and shortly before Peter Petrelli had nearly gone ‘boom’ over the skies of New York City. And the confrontation between his best friend, Hiro and the man called Sylar.  
After that it had all been pretty much a blur and the rather anti-climatic twelve hour flight back to Japan and the return to his office job at Yamagato Industries.

So, to suddenly find himself in a rather nondescript American hotel room, well, it came as quite a shock. “Hello!” Ando shouted as loud as he could, “Is anyone there?”

He had only half meant as a rhetorical question, so when he got a response he could not help but sit bolt upright on the bed. “Where am I?” Who are you? What do you want with me?”

 

“Ando Masahashi, thirty-two years old, single, mid-level office worker, no known romantic entanglements.” An older man came in through the door; and looked to be in his late forties, with a thatch of brown growing steadily grey hair, and American to judge by his accent came in through the door and regarded where Ando sat on the bed.

“I do apologize for the unfortunate treatment you have thus far received at the hands of my..” he paused and then added, “associates; they can be rather over zealous at times. It’s the nature of the work.”

“Work?” Ando asked, still wary of this fellow and his intentions, but curious also, so straitening up and getting off the bed, he asked. “Why the elaborate rigmarole, then? And why me?”

“I think you’ll understand,” the man replied with a wry enigmatic smile curving the corners of his lips.

“Do you always kidnap all of your potential recruits?” Ando muttered more than a little put at the back and forth manner and impatient that thus far this guy had refused to introduce himself; and in the back of his mind Ando felt a little afraid, that ’the work’ the man had alluded might have nothing to do with him, that they only wished to use him to get to Hiro.

It was a thought that made him almost bite his tongue, and firmly decided that he would rather die than allow that to happen. Hiro was the one with the special powers, yes, but as time had proved over and over again, every hero needed a sidekick, and as far as their friendship was concerned, every so often even the sidekick got to save the day once in a while.

“No,” the older man replied shaking his head, and then added with a sigh, he added,” the name is Jack Shapiro, and reaching out with his left hand, he offered to Ando. The sleeve of the loose heather grey cotton shirt he wore rode up a few inches to reveal a tattoo unlike Ando had ever seen: some kind of Y-shaped symbol surrounded by brown stones.

His head swam trying to make heads or tails of it, and decided that he would study in more depth when he had the opportunity to do so. Ando toke the offered hand and shook it. “I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but we both know that ship sailed a long time ago.”

“Agreed,” the other man replied. “Let us cut to the chase, then,” he continued. “The reason you were brought here, is that we feel, we, being the organization that I work for, feel you are uniquely qualified to join us in our important work.”

“Which is?” Ando prodded, fishing for more information.

“Research, mostly, but there are many opportunities for field assignments as well.”

“I still don’t understand,” Ando shook his head to clear of the inevitable cobwebs. His headache had finally subsided and he was desperately thirsty. Shapiro seemed to sense this for he nodded and gesturing with his thumb. 

“Feel free to help yourself to the water carafe on the nightstand, or if you wish with something with a more kick to it, there’s liquor in the wall cabinet.”

“I’ll just stick to water, thank you,” Ando replied as he turned and stepped over to the table and poured water into a glass that had set out as well. With a glance over his shoulder who calmly waited for him, Ando downed the contents of the glass in a few swallows. “Our organizations could use someone of your talents, Mr. Masahashi, and whether or not you understand this now, given the nature of our work, we could not make contact with you at your current place of employment.”

“Why, do you only limit your research to the United States, or have some other reason why you don’t operate in Japan or Asia?” Ando asked.

“No, that’s not the reason, but it was a good question.”

“Then what?” If you all about me already, then you know that I’m not exactly a patient man, and what with being kidnapped, and maybe drugged, let’s just say, let’s cut to the chase, okay?” Ando sighed and reached up to finger comb his thatch of black hair. “Out with it already? Or I really will go crazy.’

“We’re a secret society. My name is James Horton, and I think you’ll join us.”

“This had better not be the recruitment space for some kind of crazy cult, for if it is, I walk right out that door and never look back,” Ando declared meeting and locked gazes for as long as he could.

The other held his gaze for a moment before he burst out into peals of laughter. “I must say, this is the first time I’ve ever recruited anyone for our organization with, your, shall we say, unique sense of humor. Lord only knows, we could use more of that.”

“So, then, what?” Ando demanded.” And I meant what I said, earlier, either you come out with it or I walk.”

“We’re into secrets; yours, mine, and especially, those with shall we say, extraordinary gifts.”

“I’m outta here!’ Ando burst out and began at a fast walk to try and blow past the older, taller man.

Horton held up a hand, “Wait!”

“Why, this is the plainest pack of smoke and mirrors, and double-talk if I ever heard one.” Ando shouted, “Give me one good reason why I should believe any of it, let alone be convinced into signing up to join the loony bin.”

James Horton nodded and shoved his hands into the pockets of his grey pin-stripped dress slacks. “Fair enough, and I was once in your place and I can understand how it sounds, crazy; but let me assure it’s all true.”

 

“Stranger things have happened,” Ando muttered. “That’s something I guess we can both agree with. In the back of his mind Ando wondered again if this ‘secret society, knew about Hiro and others like him, the Petrellis, Niki Sanders, the cop who could read minds, the little girl who could pin-point just about anyone just by thinking about them, and him quite ordinary in the grand scheme of things; what kind of secrets where they so carefully gathering, and keeping, and what could he possibly have to offer them, anyway?”

“Then are dreamt of your philosophies, Mr. Masahashi.” Horton finished the quote.

“We’re called the Watchers.”

“Who do you watch?” Ando asked in spite of himself and thought, “Sign me up for the loony bin.’ and he was startled out of his meandering thoughts by the reply that Horton made to his question. “Immortals.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll come to understand, in time,” Horton replied this time with a genuine smile creasing the lines of his face. “it’s a difficult to accept for all first timers, but it gets easier. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks, I think,” Ando muttered as he stepped back and nearly fell but managed to sit down in a nearby chair in the room. “Research right, that’s all I’ll be expected to do, to start out with?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then, when do I start?”

“Tomorrow, will be soon enough, For tonight, get some sleep. I will come pick you up at ten sharp.”

As he heard Horton slip out through the door and Ando feel asleep in the chair he could not help thinking that he may have made a big mistake, and not for the first time, he very much wished that Hiro were here; they had made a great time, and even so, no matter the obstacles that had been thrown up in their path. Even so, it would have been nice to have someone to talk to. He shut his eyes and his weariness, stress overwhelmed him and he gradually feel asleep.

Seacouver, Seattle, present day

Chasing after Sylar may not have been the best idea in the world, Hiro thought, with Ando following along in his wake, but under the circumstances, it might be the only thing the could do. At the moment their options were rather limited and that putting it mildly.

Given Hiro’s powers to transport through space and time they had been granted a brief glimpse of the future if they failed to prevent New York City from going boom.

They had to do something, even if that something was to stop a serial killer from slicing any more peoples’ brains . With the image of the painter Isaac Mendez’s lifeless body.

Lying crumpled on the ground of his studio apartment floor.

The fact that if he had hesitated or reacted slower it could have been himself or his best friend Ando, lying on that floor as well, was a definite motivator to. He had tried, the sword of Kenzi was a catalyst for his powers when he had believed that they were gone.

After failing to save Charlie Andrews; to his sorrow and the dawning realization that were some things that he could not change, no matter how hard he might wish to; this power was bigger than he was; and he figured now he had to accept that to be the case.

Hiro felt a new found surge of confidence and determination to carry on with his mission. His father, after the first sword had been turned to ice, had been quite clear on that, even if the abrupt turnabout in his father’s opinion had come as a bit of a shock.

The appearance of a man brandishing a naked drawn sword with his black leather coat open at the collar, his hair plastered to his head in short spiky tufts, was more than enough to distract Hiro from his murkier thoughts. 

Trying to keep his voice firm and steady Hiro stood up and said: “What do you want with me?”

“You don’t know?” the other asked in some surprise. “What we always want from one another.”

“I am not certain what you are implying,” Hiro replied as attempted to fumble around with one hand behind his back to reassure himself that his own sword was still securely sheathed on his back.

Hiro had not met everyone with super powers, but even so, in the course of his quest he met many of the most prominent,; however, this man was a completely stranger, and it might have been his fatigue and shock but Hiro could have sworn right before the stranger had stepped out of the shadows of the alley, he felt a surge at that made the short black hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end.

“Your head,” the leather-clad man stated. “Where are my manners, I have not even introduced myself, the name’s Jerome Matthews and you’re a dead man.!” With that he swung his blade around in a wicked two-handed arc and crossed the space between them into a couple of swift strides.

“Now, wait just a minute!” exclaimed Hiro. “You are making a serious mistake!”

Hiro had some experience in sword-fighting, that sparring training with his father shortly before going to Kirby Plaza in New York to face off against Sylar, but even so, one look at the glowering, swallow-faced appearance of the big man who had challenged him to fight, and not just any fight, but one with blades.

Hiro decided at that instant that this was one time where it would be a good idea where discretion was the better part of valor. However, his natural curiosity almost got the better of his common sense, and in the back of his mind, he thought, ‘Why does he want to take my head? I swear on my honor, that I have never met this man.’

With that Hiro managed to dodge and dart out of the way of Matthews’ wilder swings and backed up against a buildings far wall, before he was in the clear, tightly squeezing his eyes, he concentrated , blocking everything else; and right before the astonished eyes of his attacker, disappeared in the blink of an eye.  
***

Hiro woke up and unsteadily got to his feet, gradually regaining his confidence and his equilibrium at the same time, realizing that he had managed to get out that dark alley only to reemerge inside the front entrance of some kind of drinking establishment. It was filled with patrons, and in the distance toward the rear of the building a bad played atop a stage that stood about five feet higher than the floor.

“This is not at all what I had in mind,” Hiro muttered under his breath, but as he got a good look around he sighed. “It will have to do. But where am?”

At the table nearest the serving counter Duncan MacLeod suddenly felt the tell-tale ‘buzz’ at that back of the neck moments before his friend and protégé, Riche Ryan did, but that was to be expected, given the differences in their ages.

What Duncan was not as sanguine about was the fact shortly after conducting the 360’s quick survey of their surroundings it was almost impossible to determine where that early warning sense of danger came from; it seemed as if it had appeared out thin air.

Duncan knew that was not possible and turning to exchange a quick significant glance with Richie placed a restraining cautionary hand of the younger Immortal’s shoulder warning him to stay put until he discovered what was happening.

This was, after all, Joe Dawson’s bar, and by tacit understanding it was almost as any other Immortals out there on the lookout for a head to take, or the stomach for a fight, would know that Joe Bar’s was essentially off-limits. Duncan marched forward his the soles of his boots oddly muffled on the wooden floor, moving swiftly through the crowd.

Duncan swept past a short Asian man lingering by the doorway, searching for a threat and feeling a bit cheated and angry at his inability to find one.

For his part Richie blinked, downing the remaining fingerful of amber-colored liquor in his glass before he set down on the table and leant forward in his chair.

It might have been a result of his over-active imagination and the amount of alcohol in his system; however he could have sworn that he saw the air near the doorway and around the first few tables warp and bend; the air flicker in out of sustainability, seconds before the Asian man’s sudden appearance.

The music of the jazz band playing on the stage towards the rear of the bar had paused for the merest heartbeat of seconds but resumed almost immediately afterwards as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred.

“Hey, Joe, do you see him, too?” Richie casually asked Dawson who had shuffled over from the serving counter and sat down at an empty seat at their table.

“I see him, and he doesn’t look all that dangerous. I think he might actually be in some kind of trouble,” Joe said.

“Maybe I should go and find out,” Richie nodded as he stood up his chair scrapping along the floor boards of the wooden floor. He weaved his way in and out of the crowd the pulse of the band hardly missing a beat in their set; everyone else in the bar did not appear to have noticed anything, too. To Richie’s way of thinking that was a definite plus.

Hiro managed to unwind himself, patting around on his back for all the world looking like a man trying to reach an impossible to reach itch; actually he was making certain that he had not managed to lose the sword in his escape. Reassured on that score he looked up when he saw a young, well-built blond American approaching.

“Pardon me,” Hiro said. “Could you tell what this place is?” Where am I?”

“It’s a jazz club slash bar,” Richie replied with a wry smile. “I get the feeling that you don’t look the type to frequent such establishments, am I right?”

“No, not often,” the man replied in heavily accented English.

“You’re not from around here,” Richie observed with a curt but not unfriendly nod.

“Where is exactly is here?” the older man asked.

“You’re in Seacouver, Washington.”

“I do not know this Washington, it is a state correct?”

“Yeah, it is.“ “Where are you from?“ Richie asked.

“Japan,” Hiro replied.

Richie was even more curious who this fellow might be and even more to what had brought this fellow all the way from Japan.

Granted Richie did not have a tenth of Mac’s experience when it came to the world of the Immortals and the Game, and this fellow’s appearance had taken them both by surprise. Add to the fact that Mac had been reluctant in the extreme to admit that much to his friends in the first place.

This guy’s sudden appearance, as if out of then air had taken them both by surprise; but he did look to be much of a threat, but he had been wrong before. So had MacLeod, however in the back of his mind Richie decided the more he spoke to him that sense of danger evaporated. Something indefinable told Richie that here was a decent guy that had run into a bit of trouble.

“I am, but I have been traveling around the country, “ Hiro paused and sighed and then reached up to comb his fingers through his thick patch of black hair before adding, “on business. But I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.”

“I hear you, man,” Richie grinned, this time it was a freer and less forced example than any that had come before. “I think I can help with that. The names, Richie Ryan, why don’t you come join me at our table. “Whether or not you realize this or not, you just might have come to right place after all.”

“As you have reminded me, I have neglected my own manners,” the other replied shaking his head. “I am called Hiro Nakamura.”

“Nice to meet you, Hiro,” Richie replied wondering where MacLeod had disappeared to, if he had run into sort of trouble he MacLeod was more than capable of handling it, but he really should have been back by now.

“I do hope so,” the other replied as he held out his own hand to shake Richie’s. “Do you believe in destiny, Mr. Ryan?”

“I guess so,” Richie replied as he turned around and led Hiro back to his table where Joe Dawson had been watching the proceedings with his usual mild expression plastered on his face, watching without seeming to be watching. Richie, who knew that Joe was more than just an middle-aged bartender and blues guitar player, wondered how he had mastered ‘that’ particular technique, it really did come in useful.

“Dawson, this Hiro Nakamura,” Richie began a round of introductions, “Joe, this is Hiro Nakamura, from Japan, do you think you could find him something to drink, he doesn’t look so good, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Nice to meet you,” Joe replied. I think I can manage to rummage something up.”

“Water, water will be fine, thank you,” replied Hiro.”

Just then Duncan came back in through the front door from searching around the vicinity of the bar, unable to find any sign that an Immortal had been in the area at least not within the last forty eight hours.  
Hiro as abstracted and tired as he was could not help but notice the quick head turn and the wary look in Ryan’s blue eyes at the approach of a tall, muscular dark-haired man who moments later joined them at their table.

“Hey, Rich, whose you’re friend?” the big man casually asked. From the slowly relaxed tension in Richie’s shoulder muscles Hiro allowed some but not all of his breath out in a soft whoosh. “Hiro Nakmura, a.. pleasure to meet you.”

“Duncan MacLeod, likewise.”

“Do you believe in destiny?” Hiro asked.

“I guess I believe in the kind of destiny a man makes himself,” Duncan said as he nodded at Joe who came back with the promised glass of water in one hand and a filled to the brim pitcher balanced in the other hand, who also joined them group at the table.

“So do I,” Hiro sighed, but sometimes I might wish that destiny would either leave me alone, or handle things with a bit more affiance.” He sighed and trailed off without further elaboration of his last remark. “I know I am not making much sense, but I fear I have become deadly unmoored of late.”

“Mac, he’s okay,” Richie spoke up. “I don’t know what his whole deal is, but I think he’s in some kind of trouble, and I think we should help him!”

“Famous last words,” MacLeod sighed. “Very well, Richie, agreed, but we need more information to go on than that, agreed?”

Richie eagerly nodded in silent affirmation before adding: “Agreed!”

“Thank you, thank you,” Hiro gushed.

Dawson exchanged a glance with Hiro who took a sip from his glass before setting it down to catch the gaze of the bartender. “This might take a while.”

“Don’t sweat it. Time is one thing we’ve got plenty to go around.” Dawson smiled, “This oughta be quite interesting.”


	2. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On making plans and finding common ground, and moving toward the start of new friendships.

Disclaimer: Heroes is the creation of Tim Kring and NBC Television as are all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned; they do not belong to me. Highlander: the Series belongs to Gauamount, Panzer/Davis Productions etc. again, not mine. The story picks up where the previous one; “Someone to Watch Over Me” left off with an interval taken into account.  
“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” by karrenia 

His new friends were correct about one thing, the explanations would take time, and as Duncan MacLeod had but it, if there was one thing that they had plenty of it was time. For reasons that Hiro Nakmura had not completely understood MacLeod or Mac, as his young friend and protégé casually referred to him, had insisted that they all relocated to Paris, France, and Hero had come along in tow.

They were still no closer to locating Ando Masahashi, but certainly not for lack of trying and he could certainly appreciate that, but it was frustrating, so he had gone out to get a breath of fresh air, and suddenly he begun to roam farther and farther afield.

They were all very kind and understanding, but at that precise moment Hiro Nakamura did not want kindness and understanding, he wanted to be going and doing something, even if it was just walking around a strange city, and pondering what he should be doing next.

He had lost track of Ando’s whereabouts some while ago, and while not alarming in and of itself, considering what they’d been through in tracking down the multi-billionaire and reclusive man named Linderman even at his company’s headquarters in Las Vegas had proved more difficult than either had imagined. 

He had been upset and frustrated with Ando’s insistence that they need to use his abilities to help them earn the money needed to continue with Hiro’s quest; because using as a metric all of the tales of heroism and destiny and derring-do Hiro somehow instinctively felt that using his extra ordinary abilities for personal gain was somehow going against the grain. In the end, it hardly mattered for the decision had been taken out of their hands, not to mention the money.

The sudden appearance of his father and his sister on the scene and whisking them both away had come as another shock, and shortly on the heels of that one that his father had been worked for the same Company that Linderman had once been a part of, and had been waiting a very long time for a member of the Nakamura family to, as his father put it, ‘manifest’. 

His father had even gone so far as take him back to New York and give him advanced personal training in combat with a sword, so he go on to Kirby Plaza and confront the serial killer known only as Sylar. It had been a surreal and whirlwind experience, and while many people had been injured or even killed to come to the point where he could no longer, even in his own mind, refer to it as an ad venture; Hiro was content that had made a difference. And isn’t that what’s it’s all about, then’ he mused.

He shuffled his feet and closed his eyes and when he opened them he was no longer in New York, or even in Las Vegas, or anywhere he had ever been or read about. Instead he stood smack dab in the middle of a wide boulevard, cars and passerby came and went intent on their own business and ignoring the disheveled and rather disoriented Japanese man as they went past him. 

A group of Japanese tourists nodded a friendly greeting, speaking rapidly in his language, and when they greeted him he responded in kind. Stretching out to his immediate right was a huge stone arch carved in relief with letters that he could not read but there statues of animals and people.

He stopped a tourist and asked in his native language, “Where am I”?

The young woman and her spouse, pushing along a baby in a stroller nodded and responded “Paris.”

“Paris,” Hiro numbly responded but belatedly recalling the conventions of social interaction replied “Domo Arigato, and he went on his way. He got off the boulevard and off onto several inter-connected side streets that were lined with mercantile establishments and restaurants. 

His stomach rumbled reminding him that he had not eaten for some time, and he saw a place where he could by some sushi, and his mouth watered in anticipation. He had just about crossed the distance between the sidewalk and the well-lit entrance when he heard a voice call to him.

For a moment he just stared because he was having difficulty recalling where he had met the young man before, than it clicked this was Richie Ryan the young man who had come to his assistance back in Seattle and then taken him in to a bar, and insisted that he needed help. The young man paused for a moment to remove his motorcycle helmet, and then peered at him in mingled frustration and amusement a devil-may care creasing his face. “Hero, dude, what are you doing wandering the Paris streets at this late hour of the night. If it’s a tour of the city that you wanted, I sure either Mac or Tessa could have arranged something for you.”

“I do not require some to watch my every move!” Hiro shouted realizing even as he did so that he had not meant it to come out that way. Richie was only trying to be friendly and he dipped his head an flushed.

“I am sorry. I realize that by taking off without leaving a word behind explaining where I’d gone must be a source of worry for you. How did you find me?”

“I don’t rightly know, myself,” Richie replied reaching up to scratch the side of his head, not because it itched but as an outlet for the emotions churning up inside of you. “Maybe you’ve got some kind of homing signal or I just got lucky.”

“More than likely the latter is the case,” Hiro grinned. “Have Mr. MacLeod or Miss Noel had any more luck in locating Ando?”

“We’ve got a couple of leads and if you remember Joe Dawson, he thinks he can call in a few favors and maybe get Interpol in on the case. Because, even back in the United States I don’t think the FBI or the CIA would do much for someone who i.s…

“Isn’t American,?” Hiro finished. “But this Interpol, would?”

“It’s an international law enforcement agency,” Richie explained,’ So yeah, I think we’ve got a good chance. From what Dawson says he’s made contact with the Japanese Embassy back in the States so we’ve got more to go own than your description of Ando.”

Richie stepped forward and gave him a comradely slap on the back. “Don’t worry so much, Hiro, its bad for the digestion, so hop on and we’ll go home. If we hurry, we’ll be just in time for a late dinner.”

Hiro eyed the red motorcycle with the white stripping askance but the curious and irrepressible part of his nature got the better of his common sense, “Can I wear the helmet?”

“Sure,” Richie replied as he handed over the helmet, “Just sit tight, hang on, and leave the driving to me.”  
***  
It was a fine spring night in the City of Lights and Duncan MacLeod stood on the deck of his house boat in order to more fully enjoy the spring breeze off the Seine. He had considered going back in and selecting a bottle of wine from his collection when caught the tell-tale ‘Buzz ‘of an approaching Immortal cause the short black hairs on his nape to stand up and he carefully but warily took a three hundred and sixty inspection of his immediate surroundings.

Darius walked the streets of the Parisian night with a clipped and determined stride, knowing that the man that he had come to see would wonder at this sudden change of heart on the elder Immortal’s reasons for leaving the sanctuary of his beloved church. It was unheard of, and for someone like Darius who had for centuries had long espoused the principle of religion and non-aggression both as a way of life and as a vocation; it would even be dangerous and fool-hardy for him to do so.

Darius had only come to know Duncan MacLeod for a short while in the grand scheme of things, but thought of him as a friend, and from his own sources of information, what he had learned concerned him greatly, so greatly in fact, that he left his sanctuary to warn MacLeod and his friends of a clear and present danger that could very well affect them all.

Thus he approached the man’s house-boat on the River Seiene, waving in friendly greeting when came within visual range and the shouting when he came within hearing distance. MacLeod, still fit and active even after five hundred plus years leapt down from the top of the house boat and came to land in front of him with a thump. “Darius!” he boomed in his deep baritone voice, “To what do I owe this pleasure?  
I am pleased to find that you are well, my friend.” Darius shook his head and pushed up the cuffs of his brown priest’s cassock, “but the reasons for my coming should be discussed in private, perhaps we could go inside.”

“Of course, “MacLeod replied and led the way.

Once seated he went to his wine rack and took down the bottle of the vintage he had been saving for a special occasion, uncorking it and pouring two glasses full at the island kitchen counter and then holding them by their stems walked back over to the seating area and handed one to Darius and set down the other for himself.

 

“I’ve wanted a reason to open these, and I get the distinct impression that what you came all this way to tell me, is bound to be thirsty work.”

“The gesture is appreciated, “Darius replied as he lifted his glass and took a small sip, saying as he did so: "An excellent vintage, but I am afraid that I did come all this way to make a social call. In fact, as you well know, it was a wrench for me to even leave my sanctuary, but dire events compelled me to do so.”

“Tell me,” Duncan encouraged softly.

“It has come to my attention, that somebody other than our own kind has been selectively targeting our friends among the Immortals. Have you seen or heard from Amanda, or Fitzcarin of late? Darius asked.

“No. Not lately.”

“It’s been said that others have vanished under mysterious circumstances, well even more mysterious than is our lot, if you take my meaning.” Darius sighed. “I wish this were not the case, but the evidence I have accumulated, including something I left behind in my church leads to me to connect the dots and it all leads to one thing, we’re be hunted.”

“We’re always been hunted or the hunters, by our own kind or in the past by those who don’t or can’t understand what we are,” Duncan Macleod countered. “Why should this be any different?”

“Damn that pride and stiff neck of yours, MacLeod!” Darius exclaimed and then blushed and apologized profusely for the unaccustomed outburst from the normally diffident and mild-mannered priest. “But I came to warn you. If you don’t believe me, find the others, Fitzcarin, Amanda, or barring that find the document I hid and read it for yourself, and then judge if I merely being paranoid in my admittedly old age.” Darius smiled a thin, but confident smile, the merest thinning of his thick lips. “Then after you’ve read the book, tell me I’m wrong about the danger posed by this shadowy rogue group.”

“You’ve always known that I take your advice seriously, and I’ll go, Darius,” he added a moment or two later. “Don’t get so worked up. Another drink?”

“Perhaps one more glass, all things in moderation after all.” Coming from a priest MacLeod was hard-pressed to maintain a straight face. “I’ll go and read the book and then we’ll move on from there.”

“That’s all I ask,” Darius replied.  
***  
In another part of the city, but within a good walking distance of MacLeod’s house boat, there was a crinkle and warping of the air like the heat shimmer illusion on a hot summer day. Richie Ryan, in the process of removing his motorcycle helmet only caught the optical illusion out of a corner of his eye. Under normal circumstances he might have been inclined to dismiss as his over-active imagination playing tricks on him, however the tell-tale ‘Buzz’

Meanwhile in a series of inter-connected buildings set back a ways from the hustle and bustle of daily life in Paris Ando was having an encounter of a distinctly different nature. A man named James Horton claimed to have intervened on his behalf when he had found him lying unconscious in an alley, having been knocked out by a man named Doug Matthews; who it seemed had been targeting Hiro and had only seen Ando as an obstacle in his path.

The motive for Matthews’ attacking Hiro was less clear.

“Why should I believe anything you say!? Ando exclaimed. "You must take me to my friend this instant! “He will be frantic with concern for me. You don’t know how he can get.”

“Indeed,” the other man replied nonchalantly folding his arms across his chest. “Why don’t you enlighten us, Mr. Mashashi. I do hope I pronounced that correctly. My Japanese is quite rusty.”

“How the hell do you who I am?” Ando retorted.

“Well, the simplest way is by due diligence and research. I don’t particularly understand the events that took place in New York at Kirby Plaza or the subsequent appearances and disappearances of certain key individuals that might have shed more light on events.”

Ando shook his head and glancing around the room to avoid gazing into those bright blue and intensely burning eyes, saw a nearby chair and sank into it. He was tired, and the idea that their lives might be in danger because of the manifestation of people with extraordinary abilities, was an absurdity.  
**  
A week or two later.

“You must be out of your effing gourd!” Ando exclaimed. “You want me to do what?” You can’t possibly ask that of me! We’ve been friends a long time, back in Japan when were just office clerks, cogs in the machine, but the idea that he’s what do you call it again?

“Pre-Immortal,” Horton calmly replied.

“Yeah, that,” Ando snorted. “That’s just crazy-talk.”

“Where do you think the currently active Immortals come from?”

“I don’t know, maybe a factory?”

“You do have a very odd if dry sense of humor, Mr. Masahashi; believe it or not, I do appreciate that in an agent. As you must be aware of by now the Watchers began centuries ago as a means to study, understand and if necessary prevent widespread depredation by those whose lives span hundreds of decades or even centuries.

Horton handed him an ivory-handled gun from a pocket of his immaculately tailored and pressed brown suit, and said: “There are more than one way of gaining your compliance in this matter.”

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re in the right here,” Ando sighed and brushed a hand through the strands of his spiky black hair. “What gives you the right to say who dies and who lives?”

Horton sighed. “It’s a valid point, but nobody ever said life is fair, in point of fact, life is inherently unfair. “Ando, you were informed from the moment we enlisted you there would come times in an agent’s career that will require more from you than mere research, that you would be given opportunities for field assignments.”

“Such as killing my best friend?”

“Morbid levity. We suspect that your friend is what is referred to as a Pre-Immortal, so the shot to any other part of his anatomy other than the head will only ‘kill’ him temporarily.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to prevent that from happening?”

“No.”

“That’s it? No? Our organization or rather since we’ve seen fit to branch off from the Watchers, have come to a realization that we must take a much more proactive stance concerning Immortals than our counterparts. And let’s face it; I must say I am intensely curious in these manifestations of time displacement.”

“You want to know how he bends space and time.” 

James Horton nodded. “Very much so.”

“I’ve known Hiro all my life and I’ve been with him through thick and thin, since his abilities manifested, ”Ando trailed off and titled his head to one side as if thinking the matter through as how to quite explain what he wanted to say or even if he should. Those intense blue eyes stared at him and even though his situation was quite serious Ando briefly thought the man could have very well manifested the ability of never blinking. He shoved the wayward thought to a back corner of his mind and then said aloud. “You’d have to ask him, and you can’t very well do that if he’s dead.”

 

“Your point is well taken,” the other replied.

Ando hefted the gun in his hand, feeling its unaccustomed weight drag at the bones and muscles of his hands and wrists.

Even now, with the knowledge he had gleaned from the chronicles he was not at all certain that he believed in the existence of those who had been granted with an extra ordinary long life-span, or that they believed Hiro Nakamura to be one of them. But what he could he do? He was stuck with these rouge Watchers and there that was the end of it.

Horton sensing that he had pushed Ando as far as he could left the room and said over his shoulder as he paused half in and half out of the doorway that led out into the corridor that connected one building of the complex to another. “I do hope you’ll give the matter the appropriate consideration.”

He sank into the nearby chair and covered his face with his hands, and begun to take dry heaving breaths. He felt like the worst sort of fool. He had felt bamboozled, betrayed and the fact of the matter that he really did not have much of choice in the matter, any way you looked at it, he was screwed. 

Ando had not even taken the fatal shot yet, and already he could picture the look of hurt shock and betrayal on his best friend’s face. He couldn’t take it, until running it over and over in his head, he at last succumbed to exhaustion and he fell asleep in the chair that he sat in.  
***  
Meanwhile on the boat house shortly after they had finished eating a late dinner Richie and Hiro had offered to clear away the dishes,: he gave his compliments to the beaming and beautiful Tessa Noel. 

Tessa smiled and said: “If you’ll pardon me, gentlemen, I still have a great deal of work to in preparation for an art gallery opening in a couple of weeks, so if you’ll excuse me, I’d best get to it.”

“Good night, Tessa.” Richie waved.

“Good night, Richie,” she replied and stood up and came around the table to plant a lingering kiss on the lips of MacLeod and a peck on the cheek for Richie. “Good night, Hiro,” she offered and then turned and walked out of the dining area.

“In the morning I going over to visit a friend, and I best do it alone.” Macleod sighed. “He’s a solitary man by nature and I don’t want to overwhelm him. Besides he wants me to find something that he’s hidden away.”

“Sure, Mac, I understand,” Richie replied.

“As do I,” Hiro replied. “We can keep ourselves busy by cleaning up here.”

Richie groaned, and then shrugged. “No prob.”

“You try and stay out of trouble,” MacLeod cautioned.

“Hey, you know us,” Richie joked.

“Yes, I know, that’s why I’m warning you to stay out of trouble. It never hurts to reinforce my warnings,” MacLeod added with a wry grin of his own. “Just you both remember that, okay?”

Duncan entered the church and the feeling of security, and peace and quiet it represented as both holy ground and as the chosen sanctuary of his friend Darius enveloped no sooner had he entered and crossed from the nave and through the rows of pews to the sancristy. There was no sign that Darius had been there recently except that candles had been placed neatly into their iron sconces and the wicks had been lit. “Darius! Darius, its’ Duncan!

He continued to search and call the man’s name for a good length of time, and still nothing, the alarm bells began louder and louder and then he realized with the force of a sucker punch to the gut that the pews were not as neatly arranged as he had thought, bunting and torn pages had been torn down to lie in discarded heaps on the floor and on the wooden seating. 

Finally, he came upon a rumpled heap of fabric inside of Darius’ rectory that was considerably bigger and heavier than the others. 

Duncan crouched down and with a shove of his hands turned it over to so it was facing up. He ignored the blood that trickled onto his hands as he stared at the familiar face now masked in a tracery of blood over the waxen pale features of Darius. 

Duncan let out a scream of anger, fury, and grief. Swearing that he’d find the man’s killers and exact vengeance for what had been done here, for the man and his beloved church. 

Knowing that with Darius dead he had very little time left in which to search for the promised book and he would have to call and inform the Parisian authorizes to remove the body and take it to the morgue, but first he would search for the book that Darius had promised he’d leave behind for him to find. 

He began to look for the promised book, first in the obvious places, but then in the less obvious ones, at last he found it tucked away behind the scroll in the confession booth on the side where the priest would normally stand whenever he took the rite of confession from a parishioner.

He leafed through a moment, noting the thick brown leather and the heft of the book, its white pages and flipped through it, as well the stamped inscription of one of the many infinity symbols used by mankind through the ages. According to it’s the book was called the Fifth Chronicle and if what he had gleaned from thus far then Darius had not been paranoid at all, in fact, had he been deadly earnest. 

Duncan decided that would read it in more leisure once he made certain that Darius was all right and stuffed the book and the piece of paper on which a depiction of a human wrist along with several stones inside of a circle had been drawn onto it. After a brief moment of studying it, Duncan stuffed into a deep pocket of his long coat.

Conclusion

Riche and Hiro were involved in a discussion about the operations of motorcycles, something that after one ride the latter found fascinating when MacLeod stormed into the seating area of the boat house with a look on his face that would not have been out of place on a thunder cloud. Hiro had the distinct impression that MacLeod’s expression at this moment could very well have served as a model for a Japanese artist who wished to portray the fierceness and determination of a wind and storm dragon.

“Hey, Mac,” Richie greeted. “What’s up?”

MacLeod continued to fume for a while longer, pacing up and down the floor boards until he stopped and glanced over at them. “Darius is dead.”

Richie heaved a deep sigh and rocked back and forth in his chair for a bit, absorbing this news. “Geez, Mac, I’m sorry, I know you and he were really close and all.” He paused and then asked. “Was, it, you, normal causes, or was it normal causes because of the weirdness?”

“You certainly have an unusual way of putting things, Riche, and the answer to your last question, is yes, no, and maybe.”

“Not very helpful,” Richie replied.

“I know, but I can’t be any clearer than that at the present time,” MacLeod replied. “I told you both that Darius came to visit me several days ago to warn me that an unknown someone’s or someone was out there targeting people uh, like me, and Darius, and he wished to me contact our friends, Amanda and Fitzcarin.”

“I, too, am very sorry for your loss,” Hiro chimed in. “But isn’t this a matter better left for the authorities?"

“Yes, as far as some matters go, but in a book Darius left behind for me to find are clues to find the true culprits and for one intend to find out where they lead,” Duncan stated.

“You that we’ll help in any way that we can,” Richie offered and nudged Hiro. “Right, pal?”

“Correct, uh, pal,” Hiro echoed.

Macleod his demeanor once again more under control shook his head and sighed. “Sure, any way that you can, and both of you go to bed and get some sleep. We’ll need clearer heads and fresh eyes in the morning to consider where to go from here.”


	3. Stuck in a Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some famiiliar but not so entirely welcome faces make a surprising return which lead to few more answers and even more questions.

Disclaimer: Highlander: the Series belongs to Panzer/Davis Productions, Gauamount Televison as do the characters that appear here or are mentioned; they do not belong to me. It will reference events from episode #22, “The Hunters” from Season 1.

Heroes is the creation of Tim Kring and NBC Television; again, not mine. Note: The story picks up shortly after the events in the previous chapter “The Sidewinder.” 

“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out of” by karrenia

 

Following even a tenuous lead was better than having none whatsoever, was Duncan’s attitude when he returned with the tragic news of Darius’s death and he was all but biting off every five words in ten as he tersely and bitterly went through the motions of giving his statement to the French police. 

When he arrived back at the boat house, his anger had been banked down to a slow burning fire, but it was unavoidable that it simply was no use in attempting to deter him from his chosen path.

Tessa took one look at his face and sighed, stepping forward to embrace him and kiss his lips, and forehead. “I don’t suppose that it’s any use in telling you to be careful. I love you, Duncan MacLeod, and while I may understand that this is an aspect of our live together that I can’t share in, I don’t have to like it.”

Duncan leaned into the kiss and returned them with a few of his own. He had made the decision a few short months ago to reveal the secret of being an Immortal to her; and while it was only to be expected that she would need a sufficient amount of time to wrap her mind around the idea, he had never imagined that he’d find anyone as giving, open, compassionate and understanding as Tessa Noel.

“I know, and I’m not asking you to, uh, like it, but I owe it to Darius to follow throw, and I need to find Fitz, more than ever now,” he replied.

Sitting on the railing of the stairs that led from the seating area to the sleeping Richie was restless and tense, and torn between a need to do something to help and a touch of anxiety that if he did say or do something, it might just as well come out sounding stupid, and do more harm than good. “Good luck, Mac.”

Duncan broke his embrace of Tessa and glanced up at his young friend. “I mean it, Richie, stay close to home. I want you and Tessa, and Hiro, now, too out of whatever happens. I want all of you to stay out of this. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Crystal, boss,” Richie replied with an encouraging nod.  
***

 

Elsewhere

Takeo Kenzi, someone who in his own time had become something of anachronistic anomaly now went by an easier and much more common name: Adam. 

His last encounter with Hiro Nakamura had not ended well, or more accurately not ended in the manner he had hoped it would. The truth of the matter was they had ‘history. In fact, due to the erratic nature of the other man’s abilities, they had even gone back in time to Feudal Japan and had experienced that period in time in ways that few people could ever hope to understand. Adam now considered his regenerative ability not merely as a means to an end, or even as a way to preserve his own existence, but as a part of his life. 

In the past era they had been strangers in a strange land, reluctant allies and finally friends, Adam shook his head in mingled anger and nostalgia. Their falling out had come over a fight for the love of a good woman. 

“Wasn’t’ that always the way?” he mused to himself.

He had certainly plenty of time to contemplate the vicissitudes of his circumstances, the Hiro he had known had been naïve, shy, uncertain around members of the opposite sex, and bit insular in terms of his world-view. He had taken Hiro under his wing as something as an experiment and then as they had gotten to know each better, as a means of connecting with humanity, that he had felt slipping away from over the centuries.  
When the moment came and they had been at each other’s throats, in the present, this time, not the past, it had come as a complete shock to Adam the lengths that Hiro would go to prevent him from acquiring a substance, a virus that was potentially capable of killing millions of people. 

Being buried alive Adam had had plenty of time to formulate an escape, and from there find Hiro and confront him one last time. “This time” he vowed. “This time will be different. This time I will have my revenge.”  
**

Duncan returned to the rectory hoping to find more evidence of the mysterious organization known only as the Hunters, the clues in the so-called Fifth Chronicle not enough to go on and had just bent over what could potentially been evidence when a 1900’s cavalry sword sliced a neatly described parabola over and across the space that his head had recently occupied.

“What the hell!” 

No stranger to imminent threat to life and limb Duncan turned and blocked the follow through blow with his left forearm which knocked the weapon out of its wielder’s grip. Even as he sized up his opponent and glanced around for any other cohorts in the vicinity, Duncan did have to wonder why he had not felt the ‘Buzz’ that signaled the presence of another Immortal.

When it hit him, that he was being attacked by men, ordinary men, who knew more than they should about the most vulnerable area of an Immortal’s body’ and for a point of fact it pissed him off to no end.

The man had nondescript hair and was of medium build, seeing that his surprise attack had failed sidled away on nearly all-fours much like a sand crab, and towards the exit to the rectory and from there to the church and out into the street.

Not willing to let this lead get away Duncan immediately gave chase, his leggings pounding and his adrenaline pumping. If this was the best that the Hunters could offer…” his thoughts trailed off as he concentrated on keeping his quarry in sight.

Apparently the gun-man was a better runner than he was a fighter for led him around bends and up and down alleys, and finally lost him for a moment in late-evening traffic. Only to catch a glimpse of the man’s watery blue-eyed gaze glancing back to see whether or not he had managed to shake his pursuer.

Duncan finally caught up with in a block away from a series of inter-connected buildings linked by a covered walk-way. He pounced and the man winced in pain from the impact.

“End of the line, wise-guy,” Duncan growled.

“Who sent you!” 

“Uh, ugh,” the man replied incoherently for a bit as his head make contact with the pavement, before Duncan realized that if he kept that up his lead might very well lose consciousness and could no longer give him the information he required. “As clichéd as it may be, You had best take me to your leader.”

“Let me up.” They’re inside there,” he gestured with a flaccid hand, the palm was turned up and Duncan realized that his captive had the same tattoo on his left wrist as the one on the book Darius had left behind for him to find. 

At that precise moment the expression on the man’s pale, sweaty face changed from pained, although, the expression on his pale face altered, as if he had donned a mask. His lips skinned back and the whites of his eyes should through. “I know who you are, and even if you kill me, it won’t save your friend. He’s in there.”

 

The man gestured in the vague direction of the central buildings.

Duncan thrust the man from him. “Yeah, I’m not certain of the details, but I do know that you call, hell, I should know this…It was in the briefing, oh, yeah, Fitz. I think you call him Fitz.”

Duncan growled and then in a low menacing voice he added: “Then I have a suggestion for you, pal. You’d best make certain that you are very far away from here by the time my friend and I get back.”

“I’m shaking in my booties,’’ the other replied, his voice not as steady as his bold rejoinder. He stood up on wobbly legs and glared at MacLeod. “Geez, did you have to hit me so hard. Oh, well, I guess it’s none of my business at this point.”

“Shut the hell up.”

Duncan turned his back on the man and ran toward what he believed to be the entrance, reaching for his sword as he did so. He’d been attacked once already, and Darius, attacked on holy ground, whoever or whatever these Hunters were, it was obvious that they were playing by their own rules. It would be the best policy to expect the unexpected.

To his surprise the corridors were lightly guarded, and it might just have been his imagination but the guard’s attitude and reaction to his intrusion was lackluster. It could be, as the man he’d caught and question implied a trap, or an act to lull any would be rescuers into a false sense of complacency. Duncan MacLeod had been around long enough to recognize the difference between a proverbial rock and a hard place. And kept going, trap or no trap, he and Hugh Fitzcarin had been friends too long, and he’d be damned if he’d lose another friend to these asinine Hunters.

****  
Hugh Fitzcarin, normally a jovial and almost casual Immortal as could be found on any continent, found he was experiencing something that he could not be so sanguine about. He glared as his captor in mingled anger and frustration, trying to avoid the inevitable as long as possible. Losing one’s head was the one thing that every Immortal dread, it meant the end of their existence and the transference of their essence into another person; more often than not another Immortal who had challenged them to a fight. 

In the back of his mind he thought. ‘Them’s the rules of the Game. But this, being captured by a secret society who knew much more than should not only about the existence of Immortals, but also the best means of offing them; well that’s dirty pool. In point of fact it was downright unfair, intolerable and stared at his reflection in the reflective blade of the guillotine hovering within inches of his neck, another thought followed on the heels of the first. ‘This is an asinine manner in which to die. I am simply not ready to do so, yet.’

A commotion from the corridor outside the chamber in which he was imprisoned interrupted his meandering thoughts and distracted the attention of his captor. James Horton was a creep, inside and out, but Hugh had to grudgingly admit he was a very intelligent creep, and judging by his reaction to this breach of his little secret society’s security, he may have had ice water in his veins instead of blood.

“Duncan MacLeod,” he greeted. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“James Horton, I presume,” Duncan growled in response. “As much I want you to pay for what you and your henchmen did to my friend Darius…”

“You have other priorities, other friends,” Horton finished for him.

“Damn it! I don’t need you to finish my thoughts for me.”

“I just thought I’d save you the trouble”. He then turned and signaled to another man that neither Duncan nor Fitzcarin had seen before’ who had come out of a connecting hidden door. The man was not someone either of them had ever seen before, nor did he seem to be off either European or American origin, in fact with the thatch of black hair and the almond-shape of his eyes, Duncan would have pegged him as Japanese.

“I believe you have a question that this gentleman can answer better than I could,” Horton instructed.

The Japanese man gulped, and then tentatively asked, “Is he with you?”

“Who?”

“Japanese, a bit on the middle average height, likes to go on about destiny and his purpose, goes by the name of Hiro Nakamura?”

“Yes, but what….Oh, you must be Ando.” Duncan finally put the pieces together.

“But what are you doing here?”

“They recruited me; they made me swear to their secret society before I knew what I was swearing to. The way things were going, I think Hiro and I both knew that there was no way either of us could go back to the lives we once had.”

“That’s enough!” Horton snapped. “I believe I have given you more than enough time to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Masahashi. You may go now.”

“If anyone had asked for my opinion, which in point of fact, they did not, Fitzcarin interrupted,’ it seems to me that our Mr. Masahashi does not want to be a part of your little club, so why not let him go. Hell, why not let us all go?”

“Ando, why does that name sound familiar? Duncan mused and then he recalled that this was the Ando that Hiro Nakamura had been so desperate to locate. He mulled over the various ways that they escape and still take 

Ando with them, but ultimately realized that if they were forced into a running fight; it would be difficult enough with just the two of them. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, Hiro misses you and I’ll explain what happened. It’s not enough…”

“It’s more than nothing.”

“Why can’t you let me go?” Ando turned and angrily confronted Horton. “Why not!” he demanded.

“Because,” Horton shrugged and stepped forward to reach for the triggering mechanism on the old fashioned device.

“NO!” Ando screamed.

Duncan darted forward and slammed into Horton forcing him to the ground and then seeing that the force of the impact had briefly knocked him unconscious, took advantage of the opportunity to undo the straps that bound Hugh Fitzcarin to the bed of the guillotine.

“Thank you, my friend!’ Fitzcarin gulped rolling over on his side and then standing up. “I wish that I could express my thanks in a commensurate manner, but I believe that time is of the essence.”

“I see that this ordeal has not managed to damper your long-windiness, but you’re right,” Duncan replied, “We should get the hell out of here while we can.”

Aftermath

Richie, Hiro and Tessa were sitting down to dinner when they all reflexively and immediately glanced toward the lift that connected the upper and lower halves of the boat house. 

“He’s fine. He does this a lot. Don’t worry so much, Tess,” Riche said encouragingly.

“How can you be so certain?” Hiro asked.

Tessa was just about to answer that question when she paused and stood up when she could have sworn she heard footsteps on the level above.

Immediately she could tell from the set look on his face and his body language that things hadn’t gone strictly according to plan, however as much as Tessa Noel’s curiosity about what had occurred what had happened to the kind priest Darius; she also knew that Duncan would tell all of them in his own time. 

However, in a back corner of her mind she kind of wished he’d show a little more consideration for people whose life spans did not span a couple hundred centuries. She greeted Duncan and a man whose noble bearing, mannerisms, while elegant appeared to have suffered more than a little wear and tear in the last few days. “Tessa, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, Hugh Fitzcarin.

For his part, Hugh stepped forward and gently and lightly kissed her raised palms. “I assure you, the pleasure is all mine, Miss Noel.”

“Fitz,” Duncan remarked.

“What happened?” Tessa asked even as she ushered both men into the living area and then bustled around pouring cups of tea for everyone.  
Hugh heaved a sigh. “It would seem that as much as we may wish to keep and protect our loved ones save, I would have to say, MacLeod, that they should be told.”

“I don’t know, I think those responsible for both your capturing and torturing, not to mention the death of Darius, would not hesitate to harm our friends and families, if they were aware of their indenties,” Duncan replied.

“What the hell!” Richie exclaimed. “Did I just hear you right or did you just say someone offed Darius?”

“Yes, Richie, and it was in pursuit of his killer that led to Fitzcarin here, and finally to the headquarters of secret organization who call themselves the Hunters,” Duncan replied sitting down heavily into the cushions of an over-stuffed chair and running his hands through his thick black hair.

“Why?” It doesn’t make any sense,” Tessa added. “He was a priest, a good man. He wouldn’t have harmed a proverbial fly. Why him?”

“Because he found out something that they did not want anyone else to know about,” Hiro remarked. “I have seen it happen before. There are others out there, others who have manifested, and some have gained mastery of their abilities, and while others have not.”

“There’s a point to all this?” Hugh muttered.

“Oh, that’s right, where are my manners?” Tessa smiled. “Mr. Fitzcarin, this our new friend, Hiro Nakamura. Hiro, Hugh Fitzcarin, and old friend of Duncan’s.

Hiro nodded his head in acknowledgement. “And yes, there is something referred to as the Company, the man I tried to stop back in Las Vegas and in New York belonged to it; they somehow even knew that prior to my own generation that people with extraordinary abilities would manifest; and they wanted to control them all.”

“Sounds daft to me,” Hugh remarked.

“I don’t know what the word ‘daft’ means. “Hiro bristled. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Fitz, you seem rather nonchalant about your uh, recent’ uh, brush with death.”

Duncan interposed himself between the two, as if he were trying to deliberately head off a fight, but truly he merely meant to move over to the side bar. Tessa’s tea was fine but he suddenly felt the need for something a little stronger to drink.

“Take it easy, Hiro,” Richie soothed. “Yeah, so you’re saying that this ability of yours is merely one of many manifestations. I had hoped to avoid mentioning this, but even those who are fully in control of their abilities do not always have the best of intentions to go along with that control.”

“You’re talking about the ‘bad guys,” Duncan added.

“Yes, like the killer Sylar in New York, and Linderman in Las Vegas.” He trailed off. “I believe I mentioned them to you, Richie, did I not?’ Hiro sighed and fidgeted in his seat, his scarcely touched tea cup cooling in its saucer.  
There is another, but I had hoped I had seen the last of him.”

“Who, Hiro,” Tessa nodded encouragingly.

“I knew him as Takeo Kenzi,” Hiro sighed. It gets complicated and more than a little embarrassing for me, we were friends once, a long time ago. So long ago, that it feels I remember as a dream, or an experience that happened to another Hiro Nakamura. “

“What do you mean? I mean, I told you that my, well, teleportation as Richie insists on calling, to bend space and time, and travel between points A and B, is part of those manifestations that I mentioned earlier.”

“Go on,” Hugh added.

Hiro appeared startled but continued. “I don’t know what happened, but I had teleported into the past, the past of a Feudal Japan, where I met Kenzi. He was more than a friend, but we had a falling out over a mutual love. 

Her name was Yaeko, she was beautiful and brave, and belong to the Matasumoto clan; Even after her home, her family and nearly her entirely clan was destroyed, she fought on. With Kenzi and I by her side.”

“Sounds more like a dream, pal,” Hugh remarked with a yawn.”

“No it happened!” Hiro insisted. “When I returned to the present, I thought I’d left Kenzi behind, he had sworn revenge. And for a while I thought he’d never get out of the past to exact that revenge.”

Hiro heaved a sigh and hung his head. “But he did, he can regenerate, sort of like instant healing, it allowed to survive many times over.”

“And now you believe that he’s back?” Duncan remarked.

“Yes, I do,”’ Hiro replied in a hushed undertone. “I have had dreams, ones in which I saw him coming after me. They have come and gone for the past several nights, more vivid right before we departed Seattle for Paris. Then they stopped altogether.”

“Why didn’t you tell us any of this?” Duncan exclaimed.

“I wanted to, but there never seemed the proper moment in which to do it. And I realized that it must sound as crazy to you as it does to me. Do people actually believe a dream can give the dreamer a premonition of the future?” Hiro sighed.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” 

“No, not entirely,” Tessa smiled. “Besides, it might just be a residual effect of your experiences with this person acting on your sub-conscious.

“Besides, this Kenzi, or whatever name he goes by, won’t think to look for you here. If he does we’ll be ready for him. Which reminds me, I found your friend Ando Mashaahi. “

Hiro visibly perked up at this his face alight with eager anticipation. “He’s alive! He’s all right! Oh, thank goodness! When can I see him?”

Duncan slowly shook his head. “That’s where it gets dicey. You see, he’s with those Hunters I mentioned, and their leader from all appearances is forcing Ando to participate in their crimes.”

“No” Hiro staggered to his feet. “Not, Ando. I can’t, I won’t believe that of him!”

“Saw it with my own eyes, mate,” Hugh remarked. “Very sorry and all that, in point of fact I believe they are begging him on and threatening him, trying to break his spirit. But he could break free.”

“Poor, Ando. I should have never left him alone, but when that man came after him, saying he wanted to take my head. I didn’t think, I just reacted, and boom, I was elsewhere.”

“Yeah, still trying to wrap my head around that one,” Fitzcarin replied.

“We’ll do what we can for your friend, Hiro,” Duncan said. “Tomorrow morning, if you would all please accompany Fitzcarin and me to the shores of the Siene for a burial ceremony.”

There followed a chorus of yes, of course, wouldn’t miss it, and variations on those; and each of them wishing each other a good night; they all went off to bed.

Conclusion

The small group gathered by the shoreline of the west bank of the Seine was a grave one as befitted the occasion. Tessa held Duncan’s hand and offered as much comfort as she could through both her presence as through physical contact.

Richie and Hiro handed Duncan the urn containing Darius’ ashes and stepped to one side. 

“Darius would have wanted it this way,” Duncan said in an undertone as he stood by the shore of the Siene river and watched the current take hold of the urn filled with his friend’s ashes and carry them downstream.

“I did not know him as well as you did, but from what you’ve told us, he was a good man. One of those rare types of which the term describes to a tee,” Hugh Fitzcarin solemnly remarked.

Chapter 4. Like a Hurricane  
Chapter 5 Hope Springs Eternal


	4. Like a Hurricane

Disclaimer: Highlander: the Series belongs to Panzer/Davis Productions, Gauamount Television and its respective producers and directors.   
Heroes are the creation of Tim Kring and NBC Television; again it is not mine. Note this picks up shortly after where the previous chapter “Stuck in a Moment” left off. The title was inspired by the Bob Dylan song by the same name.  
“Like a Hurricane” by karrenia

Given that he only owned the clothes he had worn from the onset and the new clothes that Tessa had bought, it did not take long at all to pack for yet another trip. That task accomplished he idled over to help Richie pack their household items into crates. 

Bursting with his usual irrepressible curiosity Hiro wanted to ask all sorts of questions for the sudden need to relocate once more back to Seattle; however he had the distinct impression that when it came to Duncan MacLeod one could only push so far, so he decided to take a different tack.

Richie sighed and gave a shrug of his shoulders in order to loosen the stiff muscles of his back and neck from being crouched down in one position for too long.

“Why is he doing this?”

“Huh,” Richie grunted and then turned to look at Hiro. “Oh, you mean, moving, and here I was just getting accustomed to Paris? Yeah, well, Mac usually has his reasons for doing everything and he usually doesn’t share them with the rest of us, not even Tessa.”

“You’d think he’d explain himself a little bit,” Hiro griped. Wondering if he’d made a miscalculation somewhere along the line in staying with his new friends for as long as he had. 

He had yet to find a way to rescue Ando from the mysterious Hunters who had been responsible for the death of MacLeod’s priest friend, Darius and had nearly succeeded in killing this Hugh Fiztzcarin person; who had gone on his way shortly after the funeral service they had held on the banks of the Siene for the priest.

While Hiro could understand, he also felt angry, it was a directionless sort of anger; and the weird thing of it was he was unclear even in his own mind if the anger was directed at himself for not doing more for Ando, for the Hunters for snatching his best friend away, or at MacLeod for not going after the Hunters. All things considered, it made for a wretched way to feel.  
“Richie?

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“May I ask you for a favor?” 

“Sure.”

“Will you take me to look around the area where MacLeod found the Hunters’ headquarters? Hiro shuffled his feet and then looked up to meet Richie’s bright blue-eyed gaze. “More than likely they have abandoned that place for somewhere more, uh, secure, but I would feel better if I took one last look around before our departure. Otherwise, I feel like I am abandoning Ando.”

Richie nodded. “I guess this Ando guy really is that important to you, huh?”

Hiro nodded.

“Okay, then, Let’s go.”  
****

As both Hiro and Richie had feared the surrounding area had been swept clean of any evidence of recent habitation or activity. The place looked and felt abandoned. They were just about to give it up and return to the boat house when, Richie, working the easternmost side of the complex heard someone moaning in pain from an alley that touched on the side of the building.  
Richie called out to Hiro who came running almost immediately. “What is it?” he gushed breathlessly, knowing instinctively that he should not get his hopes up too much, despite his native optimism. If experience had taught him anything it was too not pin too much on expectation, for the higher the expectation the greater the fall were circumstances or events or even people to let him down.

Richie did not answer right away as he was concentrating on riffling around in a duffle bag he had brought along, and then brought out a hand-held flashlight, and then turned his attention back to his friend. “I think we’ve got something here, but we’d best make it quick.”

“Do you think it’s Ando?” Hiro asked.

“Won’t know till we check it out,” Richie replied.

Following the track from the narrow beam given off by the flash-light both men crept down the alley, trying to ignore the pervasive aroma that enveloped the alley, but it was difficult. Lying crumpled in a heap by a blue dumpster was a man dressed in the tattered remnants of his clothing. His face was bruised and pale, but Hiro would have known those features anywhere, no matter how badly he’d been bruised and battered. In a rush of mingled relief and concern Hiro ran forward, but discovered that in Ando’s current state he was so much dead weight. He turned to Richie. “It’s him.”

“Are you sure? He looks pretty bad off.” Richie sighed, he had never been certain that they would find Ando and now that they had, he and Hiro had been presented with a new set of problems.

“I am certain of it.” Hiro stated and then asked: “How do we get out of here?”

“It’s not like we can call the paramedics or something,” Richie muttered.

“What about MacLeod?”

“I dunno,” Richie hedged. “I didn’t exactly clear it with him when we went out tonight.”

That’s when inspiration hit, “You take the motorcycle and tell MacLeod and Tessa what has happened. I will teleport both Ando and myself back to the boat house.”

Richie’s blue eyes widened in amazement and shuffled his feet for a bit and tried to find something to occupy his hands with, thus causing the beam from the flashlight that he still held to waver alarmingly, casting shadows up and down the deserted alley. “I don’t pretend to understand how your uh abilities work, but the last time I saw on the tail-end of a teleport you looked pretty done-in.”

“I can do this, Richie. Trust me.”

Richie shook his head. “I don’t Hiro. It’s not a matter of trust. Can you handle more than one person at a go?”

“Yes, well, I believe so. I’ve done it before, and with Ando in tow.”

“When he was injured?”

“No, but I have to try. I owe him that much,” Hiro replied, this time he shuffled his feet on the ground and would not meet Richie’s gaze. 

“Okay, then,” Riche said emphatically and extended his free hand for the older man to shake. “Let’s do this.”

“Let us, do this, then.” Hiro nodded accepting the proffered and vigorously pumping it up and down.  
**

To say that Duncan and Tessa were surprised to see Hiro and Ando show up beneath the shadow of the boathouse in the blink of an eye would be an understatement. Both were breathing hard and Ando, now semi-conscious and leaning heavily on his friend’s arm appeared to have the dazed looking of someone teetering on the edge of the instinct for either fight or flight. Tessa immediately stepped called out to them wait right where they were and she came down to help them back inside where they could be properly seen to. 

Richie had been back an hour or two prior and it had taken another forty five minutes or so for them to follow the twists and turns of his rather garbled story. 

While they listened Tessa had gotten out the first-aid kit and tended to Ando’s injuries, as best she could, thankfully most of these had been superficial and she was more than confident that he would recover given proper time and care. Introductions were made and Ando, still groggy and more than a bit disoriented was able to sit up on the couch unassisted.

“What happened?” Duncan demanded.

“I guess, this was how they punish disloyal or in my case reluctant recruits. I think so, anyway.”

“Man, they beat him up something fierce,” Riche remarked. 

Ando reached up to touch the puckered yellowish-purple skin around his eyes that made him resembled a raccoon. “Yes, they did. I am fortunate to be alive. Hiro, I am so sorry. I never meant to cause you any of this trouble.”

“Think nothing further of it, my friend,” Hiro quietly said.

“Thank you, all of you,” Ando gushed and then turning to Tessa, he said. “Might I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“Of course,” she replied and then got up and went over to the side bar, motioning to Duncan to help her carry over several glasses of water for everyone gathered in the small seating area.

“It’s not too late to call the airport and change our bookings to add one more passenger, is it?”

Duncan sighed. “I guess not, but it’s gotten a lot more interesting around here than I would have liked.”

Back in Seattle

“Hello, governor,” the blond man greeted in a fond tone but the first impression was belied by a note of denied violence that lay below the pleasant exterior.

Hiro shook. “Adam,” I thought that I would never see you again.”

“Must have been nice for you, but this, I have been dreaming, dreaming of ways to hurt you, little man, that you could not have possibly imagined.”

“You I can’t help make the observation,” Richie began, ‘but I don’t know this guy from Adam. Get it? It’s a joke! Geez, does nobody around here have a sense of humor anymore!” Richie exclaimed and then turned and walked away, throwing his hands up in the air as he did so.

“Odd choice of friends, old bean,” Adam remarked. “Where’s your sidekick?”

“Leave him out of this!” Hiro warned a note of confidence could now be heard in his voice. “

Monroe shrugged and then said quite calmly. “It doesn’t really matter anyway. It’s always been between us and no one else.”

For his part MacLeod had the oddest feeling that he should recognize this person, the accent was English or at least European but the intonation did not add up. In fact there was a great deal about this stranger that did not add up. And Duncan MacLeod’s five hundred plus years of experience that almost always amounted to a very bad thing. 

From the first he had only felt a vague sense of unease, like the lull before a thunderstorm, instead of the distinct electrical tingle of the “Buzz” that signaled the approach of another Immortal in the vicinity. For another, as soon as the man appeared the animosity between Hiro and the stranger was palpable. In fact it was like the temperature in the crisp fall air had dropped by more than thirty degrees.

Without making it apparent that he intended to do so Duncan stepped into the space where the two men stood glaring daggers at one another. “Stay out of this!” Monroe bellowed, the whites of his irises as red as those of an enraged bull. “I don’t care who you are, or why you’ve been helping the gipper there, but this fight has always been between us. Don’t get in the way.”

“There doesn’t have to be a fight,” Duncan said evenly.

“It was inevitable, once events reached a certain pass,” Monroe muttered, but it seemed the remark was mostly directed to himself than to anyone else within earshot. “A dojo, how very apropps.”

Hiro reached back for the sword he wore underneath his clothes, grateful at this point that neither of his friends and hosts had demanded that it be confiscated. They had reached a sort of tacit understanding that he be allowed to keep it so long as it wasn’t used unless in direst emergency. In the back of his mind Hiro thought. ‘This certainly counts!’ Then he shoved the errant thought into a back corner of his mind in order to more full place his concentration on the task at hand. “You always were droll, my old friend.”

“Old friend, old enemy, what difference does it make now. I don’t if you can understand this, old bean, but there’s an old saying where I come from; and I believe it appropriate under the circumstances.”

“What would that be?”

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.” With that Monroe drew his own weapon a massive heavy long-sword.

In the background he heard both Richie and Tessa crying out to stop this from happening but in a distant unattached manner Hiro knew that if Adam had come back from being buried alive then it stood reason that his old nemesis would hardly give way to reason and common sense or compassion or anything else that they might try.  
****

Just then Monroe snarled and rushed forward his own weapon drawn and leveled at the mid-point of his own torso. Duncan stepped quickly out of the way, wondering even as he did so if should be doing more to prevent this conflict from going forward, and if so, what that might be.

From his point of view, neither participant in the fight was an Immortal so the usual rules of the Game that he had known for the last five years applied here, or did it? Both were fighting with swords, Monroe with a long sword, Nakamura with a katana that very much resembled his own, down to the carbon dating if the experts he’d consulted without Hiro’s knowledge or consent were correct in their analyses. And why should that be Duncan did not know it just irked him to no end not to have the answers to these pressing questions.

Despite the almost overwhelming urge to gain his revenge in one fell swoop Adam approached the fight almost clinically after that first surge of rage-fueled attack. Instead of flailing away or beating upon his opponent’s blade with the cutting edge of his own, he took advantage of his longer reach and greater upper body strength to wear him down.

For his part Hiro had to simply throw himself into the fight with everything at his disposal. He could not afford to think beyond this point, because there might not be.   
Nor could he afford to consider the possibility that one or both of them might not be walking away from this fight. 

It irked him to no end that one of many reasons he’d even lasted this long was due to his father’s unique combination of encouragement and criticism he’d received shortly before his truncated encounter with Sylar at Kirby Plaza in New York. 

In the back of his mind Hiro thought, that his father, had he lived long enough and could have seen his son at this precise moment, ‘Would he have been proud of me?’

At that precise moment the cutting edge of Adam Monroe’s blade swept through the space that his head had just occupied. 

He had dodged just in time. “What about them?

“Oh, your friends” Adam appeared to have completely dismissed anyone else from his consciousness and it also appeared that he was experiencing a great deal of difficult tuning back in, as it were. “I thought I’d made it quite clear, that this was between us, always has been. And when I DO kill you…” he began and then trailed off. 

Suddenly he began to laugh, but it was the kind that is begins to with a low guttural sound in the throat and gradually goes up several octaves to reach a high-pitched note. And just when the laughter began to grate on the listener’s last nerve, it breaks. It is uncomfortable to listen to it as it is to watch.

Adam stopped laughing and then he fixed a quite serious gaze upon Hiro: “Only then will the slate be clean.”

In the background where Duncan, Tessa, and Richie stood with various expressions of worry and dismay on their faces, Richie turned to Duncan and whispered under his breath. “Is it just me, or this guy completely out of his gourd?”

“It’s not just your imagination, Richie,” Duncan replied. 

“Isn’t there anything you can do to stop this?” Tessa demanded.” “They’re going to kill each other. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“No!”

At that moment, although later Hiro could not have said precisely if he’d extended his blade out and Adam had impaled himself on it, or if he’d yelled out a defiant slogan in Japanese, but there was slowly cooling body lying at his feet. The hilt of Hiro Nakamura’s katana sticking out of the taller man’s rib-cage.

“No,” he repeated only this time much more quietly and softly as he back-pedaled away from the body and sank to his knees. After that it was all over except for the shouting. A heavy and quite irresistible fog swept over 

Hiro’s mind and instead of trying to resist it’ he simply sank beneath it; and he knew no more as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Conclusion

“Obviously something happened between you and this Adam Monroe, bad enough that he would come all this way in order to kill you?” Duncan said as they once more sat in the living room, a shaken, and quite pale and exhausted Hiro Nakamura cupping a steaming mug of tea in his shaking hands.

“I never meant to kill him. I can’t even be certain that I did. You see, it is difficult to explain, because I’ve only ever encountered only one other person with the same abilities as Adam.”

“What kind of abilities,” Richie asked.

“He can regenerate, heal and recover from almost any kind of injury or what not, that you can possibly imagine. Not too long ago, it was discovered that a secret cabal known only as the Company wanted to keep the existence of those of with special abilities to themselves so they could use us, for their own ends.”

“Groovy, and here we thought all we had to worry about one secret society,” Richie muttered under his breath.

“Not now, Richie,” Duncan griped.

“This other person, the one you mentioned that has identical abilities to Adam,” Tessa added.

Hiro nodded to her and took a sip of his tea, and several more after that, and the repetitive motion and what with the herbal aroma and warmth seemed to go a long way to help calm his understandably shaken nerves. “Her name is Claire Bennett, although I have never met her in person, another acquaintance of mine, Peter Petrelli, knows her quite well. When Ando and I set out on my, our mission, it was uh, rather vague, really, we were to save the cheerleader from Sylar, the serial killer.”

“Save the cheerleader?” Tessa echoed.

“Yes, in Odessa, Texas. “As I have recently learned, my ability to teleport is, not, uh, always one hundred percent reliable.” Hiro blushed and glanced at Ando who nodded. 

“It’s true, but we’ve come a long way, we both have I think,” he added.

“What happens now?” Hiro asked. “Technically he isn’t dead, and as strange as it may sound, what happened to cause the rift between us, actually happened in the past, in the way back past. If that does not sound completely insane.”

“You’re not insane, Hiro,” Tessa stated, placing an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “More than likely you’re just exhausted and confused.”

“I, think, and it hurts me to admit this,” Hiro whispered as he set down his cup of tea, “that I should leave. All of you have been exceptionally kind and generous to both Ando and me, however our mission.

“Do we even have a mission anymore?” Ando asked.

“Sylar is still out there, somewhere,” Hiro replied.

Ando shrugged. “So what? It’s not like we could stop even if we tried, and besides the last I heard there’s a national man-hunt in the works, so maybe it would be best if we left the catching of Sylar to the professionals.”

“I agree,” Duncan added.

“Then I do know what the next step should be,” Hiro remarked and then reached up to ran his fingers through his black hair, and then brought them down to cover his face with his palms.”

“It’s late,” Duncan said. “Why not call it a night, and we’ll pick this up in the morning.”

“Very well,” Hiro said. “If you think it best, Duncan-san. Good night.”


	5. Hope Springs Eternal

Chapter 5 Hope Springs Eternal

True to his word Duncan did in effect pick up where they had left off, however he had the decency to allow them to sleep in until at least eight in the morning. Hiro yawned and rolled out of bed, the pajamas that Richie had loaned him disheveled and his hair mussed, but sensing correctly that putting up a fuss about would not be welcomed, resumed his seat in the living area and calmly waited for MacLeod to ask whatever he wished to. 

Ando soon joined him and they exchanged glances and perplexed nods. 

“Do you think this Monroe fellow will come back?” Duncan asked, hardly the type to mince words and figuring that the best thing to do would be to get right to the point.

“I doubt that Adam will come back again, but he has a disturbing habit of showing up when you least expect him to,” Ando remarked. 

“I should hope not,” Hiro muttered, knowing that while he could travel in space and time, Adam had the edge on him both in terms of experience and time and as much as he hated to admit, even to himself, Adam had had a very long time in which to nurse a grudge. 

Hiro nodded. “Indeed, the point is, somewhere along the way, I think that I have, or rather we, became derailed, and while I appreciate everything Duncan, Richie, and Tessa have done for us…”

“You think it’s time we went our own way,” Ando replied. “Are you going back home?”  
Hiro sighed again. “I don’t know. I think that you should. I am not entirely certain that there will be a place for me at our father’s company and as for taking the helm, Kimiko is far more capable of doing that than I am.”

“I agree that your sister is quite capable, but if it’s any consolation, Hiro, you really shouldn’t sell yourself short,” Ando remarked.

“You should go back, Ando and while I appreciate the vote of confidence…Well, I honestly do not know what I should do.”

Duncan came into the living room and said. “Good morning, I see that you’ve already begun without me. Oh, don’t concern yourselves unduly. I couldn’t help but overhear what you said about going back to Japan, and if that’s what you want to do I am certainly not going to stand in your way.”

Tessa and Richie came in just then took seats as well. “What did we miss? Richie asked.

“Nothing much,” Duncan replied. “Only that we have to take our friends here to the airport rather sooner than expected.”

“Can’t Hiro just teleport them both back to Japan?”

“I suppose, but that’s the thing of it, I don’t think of my ability as well, something to be used lightly.”

“How does your ability work?” Tessa asked.

“A lot of focused concentration and practice,” Hiro replied. “There was a point when, I was not so cautious and the man you knew as Adam Monroe long ago was also known as Kenzi. He and I encountered each other a long time ago.”

“How long ago was that” Tessa asked. “You’re still a young man, and this Adam or Kenzi or whatever name he chooses to go by is probably in his late 30’s or 40’s, if he’s a day.”

“You see, the thing you have to understand about Adam, just like Hiro here has the ability to teleport, Adam has the ability to regenerate from just about any energy, poison or what have you. Until he and Hiro met as far as we knew Clare Bennett was only one other person that we knew of who had that ability.”

“So, these abilities of yours, there not just unique to you,” Richie asked.

“No, there are others out there, we not have known about any of this, if not for an Indian doctor by the name of Mohinder Suresh, he began a search for ordinary men and women who had begun to manifest extraordinary abilities, and thus we met.

“Sounds like something out of a comic book,” Richie remarked with an off-center grin.”

Hiro answered with a grin of his own. “Yes, I know, but I know of no other way to quite describe our recent experiences than that. I realize quite how it would sound to my audience.”  
Ando sighed. “As dangerous as Adam no doubt is, there was another who was even more dangerous, a homicidal serial killer known only as Sylar, that was not the only reason Hiro and I embarked on our mission, but it does come close.”

“This mission of yours, what is it?” Duncan asked.’

“Hiro was always well-intentioned if a little on the impractical and dreamy side, don’t glare at me like that, Hiro, it’s true, and when his abilities manifested, he had this determination to use them to well make the world a better place.”

“The original goal was to save the girl I mentioned earlier, a cheerleader from Odessa, Texas who had been targeted by Sylar who uh, coveted her regeneration abilities, somehow or other it began to spiral into something much, much bigger than just one person, or even lots of people.”

“Ando is correct,” Hiro replied somberly. “I find it difficult even at this late date to even adequately explain what happened at Kirby Plaza in New York between Sylar and our old friend, Peter Petrelli, but it was a very near thing.”

“How so,” Duncan nodded encouragingly.

“New York City could have been destroyed,

“The Exploding Man, 

“Yes, you see, the abilities are not all well, benign, and you’ve no doubt heard the saying that power by itself isn’t exactly good or evil its….”

“Often characterized by the personality of the holder,” Duncan finished the saying.

“Yes, well, the original man who everyone thought would quite literally spontaneously combust was stopped by Peter Petrelli, who uh, had the ability to absorb other people’s abilities, but he couldn’t control them all, he and his brother, Nathan, prevented the destruction of the city and Sylar disappeared in the confusion."

“So this Sylar person is still at large,” Tessa remarked with a shudder. “I can’t say that I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of either this Sylar or Adam Monroe running around loose.”

“I think I mentioned that there’s a national manhunt in the works, a task-force looking for Sylar, so I think we can leave that to the professionals,” Ando replied.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand in all this,” Richie, “How come none of this ever got out to the press and then onto the general public?”

“Everything just happened so fast, and I guess it’s not like those concerned would wish this type of thing to become a matter of general knowledge,” Hiro sighed with a heavy sigh. “Not that I blame them for wanting to keep this close to the vest.”

“I think I understand that, what I don’t understand is why either you came to the attention of the Hunters,” Duncan. 

“A case of mistaken identity, perhaps, the man that I encountered in Las Vegas wished to fight me in order to take my head,” Hiro replied. “I must say, Mr. MacLeod that I found that not advance not only extremely rude, but also extremely disconcerting. 

“Hey, Skylar cuts open people’s head with some kind of telekinesis, so this guy has a fetish with uh, decapitation. Whatever floats your boat,” Ando remarked, trying with sickly grin at gallows humor but failing miserably.

He had not slept well the previous night because his sub-conscious mind had been filled with repetitive images of the beatings he had suffered at the orders of the man named James Horton’s goons; and while he was well on his way to being physical recovered, almost it would be a long time before he be mentally recovered. Still, if given the opportunity to do it all over, to make a different decision than he had, no he would not change a thing. 

In the course of following Hiro’s mission and all the times he could have pulled out, thrown up his hands, and said enough, I want to go home, and all the times he had wished that Hiro’s so-called destiny would lose their number, he too, had caught on to this need to be part of something bigger than themselves.

When Horton and his secret society, had forcibly asked him to pick up a gun and kill his best friend; Ando had found within himself a determination to keep that from happening even at the cost of his own well-being. It was done, and there was no going back on it.

Duncan had been trying to follow the twists and turns of the rather convoluted explanation although it had been difficult at times. It would be much simpler if he accepted the fact that the other Immortal who had confronted 

Nakamura in Las Vegas had simply been mistaken in assuming that he was another Immortal despite evidence to the contrary’ what with the subtle but tell-tale ‘Buzz added to the fact that the man carried a katana sword very much similar in design and craftsmanship to his own blade. 

The rest of the details, other men, and women out there with super human abilities, well, he could only go with Richie’s off-hand remark about it being like something out of comic book. 

Hiro had even gone so far as to pull a rather battered and dog-eared copy of an indecently published comic book called Ninth Wonders. In it, Hiro had gone on to explain was depicted his entire journey from Japan to New   
York and points beyond, with a minor gap with a time traveling hiatus in Feudal Japan. 

Again, if he were to trust the evidence of his own senses, the idea of someone capable of teleportation and swords and all the rest of it, then as insane as it sounded, he had seen it with own two eyes and he had seen the man Hiro called “Adam Monroe” or sometimes Kenzi heal with the expediency and rapidity that up until now he had only seen exhibited by fellow Immortals.

It was probably a good thing that Ando was there to corroborate this wild claim, otherwise Duncan might have been as minded to tear out his hear and send the two of them in a cab to the airport.

However Duncan MacLeod had not lived, endured and survived as long as he had without adopting a healthy amount of skepticism; could he really afford to deny the evidence of his own eyes, ears and other senses? No, not really.

The Hunters and their ilk was a probably not likely to disappear overnight. Sooner or later he would have to deal with the fallout of what had been done to not only to his friend, Hugh Fitzcarin, but would need to pick up a trail no doubt gone cold by now, in case these Hunters had gone off another immortals, but that could wait, for now there other matters to deal with.

“Hiro, Ando, I don’t know quite how to say this, and frankly I’m not the type to mince words,” Duncan state and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “But I believe that much of what your story is true. So true, that it’s carried this far on nothing but sheer grit and determination, ability and no amount of luck.

“So, then?” Ando pressed as he sat forward in his chair and seemed to threaten to topple over at any moment. 

“I also think that the immediate threat presented by the Hunters, despite what they did to you, Mr. Mashashi, is over.”

“How can you be so certain?” Ando demanded.

“I can’t. Not a hundred percent certain, but I believe, Ando, that your recruitment was a means to lure out your friend and when that failed…” Duncan said.

“They certainly have an ‘interesting’ way of letting a fellow no he’s not wanted,” Ando remarked bitterly.

Hiro stood up and came over to pat Ando on the shoulder, gingerly, since the bruises were still healing. It suddenly occurred to him that having the ability to heal quickly would certainly come in handy right about now.

“You’re saying that we’re on our own now, are you not?” Hiro remarked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Duncan!” Tessa, who up until now had been listening to the back and forth exchange, but content to let Duncan take the lead, could no longer hold her tongue. “You are not simply going to let them off with goodbye and good luck are you? Not after everything that they’ve been through.”

Duncan cleared his throat, experiencing at the particular moment mingled anger, frustration and admiration for this fierce, talented, spirited and beautiful woman who had come to mean so much to him in the short time of their relationship. Admiration for that wit was not set against him, and a bit put out that she had perforce put him on the spot. 

For his part, Richie was squirming a bit in his own chair, but had not as yet, offered an opinion one way or the other. 

“I had been getting to that, Tessa. I just thought it would be better for all concerned if we now each went our separate ways. This arrangement was never meant to be permanent, and Hiro and Ando both have a mission as yet uncompleted.”

“We would concur with that, Duncan-San,” Hiro replied with a respectful dip of his black-haired head. Ando nodded as well. “We have imposed enough.”

“You know what I think?”

"No,” Hiro sighed. “But I know you will soon tell me.”

Ando grimaced and then said. “Then here it is. I think you seriously need to stop making enemies, they’re bad for your health.”

“Easier said than done, Ando,” Hiro sighed and more as an outlet for the frustrations and worries that buzzed around in his mind than as an attempt to put his hair to rights, he began to finger-comb through some of the worst snarls in his hair.

“Tell me something, after everything that’s happened to us, Kirby Plaza, Sylar, Linderman, your father, do we still have a mission or what?” Ando waited wondering if why, after all this time, why he’d been the one to press on. 

Their lives back home in Japan had been predictable, safe, and comfortable. Since the discovery of Hiro’s powers, and all the other strangers who had also begun to manifest extraordinary abilities life was no longer safe, boring, or predictable.

Looking at Hiro’s face, the familiar lines etched into it, that had not been there before, a gritty determination in the eyes, Ando had a visceral feeling that even if there were to go back to Japan, that life would never be the same, ever again.

“I think I do, and I do not think that I have mentioned this before,” Hiro paused his frantic finger-combing of his hair and looked up with a sheepish but quite earnest look on his face as he regarded his best friend, “but you have been a better friend to me than I could have ever hoped for and I did not appreciate it enough as you deserved.”

A suspicious moisture formed around the corners of Ando’s eyes and was suddenly hard-pressed to restrain it and he had to pause a moment before replying. “Yes, well, you’re welcome, and I think you sometimes need the reminder like you need another hole in the head. Speaking of which, don’t make a habit of making a target of yourself. It’s a distinctly uncomfortable sensation.”

“I shall duly make a note of that,” Hiro replied seriously and then the stern, determination expression gradually seemed to shimmer at the edges to at last give way to his habitual cheerful and energetic expression. 

“Can I go to Japan with them? I’ve never been anywhere except the greater Seattle area, and of course, Paris, and you guys are always saying how I need to see more of the world,” Richie blurted.

“No” Duncan and Tessa said at almost the same time and a spurt of mingled laughter broke out in the living room. “No, Richie, and you’re right in one respect, you do need to see more of the world, but our friends have their own mission and right now it’s been you stay here with us,” Duncan stated.

“Can I least take them to the airport in the T-Bird?” Richie asked, not to deterred, grabbing the battered copy of the comic book that Hiro had left lying on top of the coffee table, and had begun to idly thumb through it. He had never heard of either the artist or the publisher, but he had read enough comic books to admire the style of both. And he let out a low whistle when he could definitely make out the distinct likeness of both Hiro; with his arms outfling standing in the foreground of Times Square in downtown New York. A few pages later, shown depicted facing off against a T-Rex with the same katana sword that he carried on his back. 

Ando was there too, along the Sunset Strip in the heart of Las Vegas.

“Hey, if I can’t go, can you at least introduce me to the artist who wrote Ninth Wonders? I mean, according to this, Ninth Wonders was published in New York and you guys are from Tokyo, so he could he have known all about you, your lives and your travels?”

“Richie makes an interesting point,” Tessa added.

Hiro turned to face Richie and the cheerful expression of a moment before transitioning into a rather mournful one. “I am afraid not, Richie,” Hiro replied. “For you the name of the man who wrote that is Isaac Mendez and he was a painter. He is dead now. The man I mentioned earlier, the serial killer who might very well be still at large, Sylar, murdered him.”

“Oh, my god!” Tessa exclaimed.

“Did you report the murder to the local authorities?” Duncan asked.

“More or less, more or less,” Hiro murmured. “But it is problematic, because I do not think they would have believed us. Or even that they might think that since we there at the time that....

“Might have very well pinned the murder on you,” Duncan concluded. “I could not help over-hearing what Ando said earlier, “You really need to stop making enemies, Hiro. They’re hazardous to your health.”

Hiro smiled a grimly determined smile and stated: “I could not agree more, sir, but all heroes have villains. It comes with the territory.”

“Is he serious?” Tessa exclaimed.

“I’m afraid so,” Ando remarked with a fond sigh and an encouraging pat on his best friend’s shoulder.

“Has he always been like this?” Richie asked.

Ando smiled as well and replied: “Yes, more or less. But hey, that’s one of the best things I like about him.”

“Were you planning to return to Japan before our little run-in with the Hunters?” Duncan asked. Duncan had hoped that one run-in would be the last he would see of these rogue hunters of Immortals, but given his own experience and luck he sense with all the force of a sucker punch to the gut that he would not be nearly so fortunate. 

Also, another concern niggling at a back corner of his mind, other Immortals, might very well come sniffing about, like sharks smell blood in the water. Having Tessa and Richie around to protect should that happen was difficult enough, he simply add two more to that equation. They needed to leave and it was not that their stay was ever intended to be an indefinite matter.

“We hadn’t decided. We lost Sylar’s trail, but we were planning to pick up a trail from another friend that we made back in New York, a Peter Petrelli,” Hiro replied.

“Even so, any flight back to Japan would have to go through or change planes in New York,” Duncan mused. “Richie, get on the phone and call the airlines. I wish you good luck, gentlemen. It would appear that you are going to need it.”

“Not, that it’s any of my business, Sir,” Ando said, shuffling his feet on the carpeted floor suddenly feeling a bit foolish for even asking but unable to prevent himself. He did not particular care for being used by the Hunters and also not entirely convinced that the matter was closed. “What are you going to do about the Hunters? What if they come back?”

“Ando, I told you then that’s just a matter best left to me,” Duncan replied. “Let it go. In fact, I inisit that you ‘let it go.’ Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

A bit disconcerted not only by the proximity of the big man, and the icy tone in his voice Ando felt that he would have no trouble doing just that. He cleared his throat and replied. “Yes, Sir, Perfectly clear.”

“Now that’s decided, all of you get what rest you can. It might take a while to find a flight.”

“In the meantime, I think we should all go out for lunch,” Tessa remarked, piercing Duncan with a blue-eyed stare that brooked no argument.

“Agreed,” Duncan replied. “I could eat. How about Italian?”

“I could eat,” Richie said eagerly as he came back into the living room with a sheaf of print-outs with various logos of major airlines that flew out of SeaTac airport with flights to or through New York City.

“Did you find anything?” Duncan asked.

“Yeah, but nothing late tonight or tomorrow. Did someone mention Italian food?” Richie eagerly asked.

“Hold your horses, Richie,” Tessa replied.

“Thank you, all of you, for everything,” Hiro said. “We have been a great deal of trouble to you, and you have been very gracious and helpful. We owe you more than we could ever say.”

“Hiro, Hiro,” Tessa said, “Don’t sweat it. I think, that we have all benefited in a ways that we can’t explain in the short time of our acquaintance.”

“Then it’s settled,” Tessa remarked, everyone get ready for dinner and tomorrow will take care of itself.”


End file.
